ChurchMorph: How Megatrends Are Reshaping Christian Communities
Eddie Gibbs
Baker Academic, 2009, 224 pp., $17.99, BakerAcademic.com
What exactly is the difference between emergent and emerging? Why does everyone keep throwing around the word missional? In Eddie Gibbs’ latest assessment of Western churches post-Christendom, he outlines the change in cultural seasons toward postmodernity, consumerism and spiritual exploration in an information age.
ChurchMorph is part guidebook—complete with brief community profiles and a glossary of local terms—and part Old Farmer’s Almanac, suitable for church planters, professional landscapers or weekend gardeners just trying to identify the new growth in their backyard. Gibbs introduces examples of recently developed forms of Christian community running the gamut from the megachurch model to new monasticism and alternative worship. In any reference work, the data become easily dated; but as a compendium of mission statements, definitions, values and visions alone, it will remain a good resource for years to come.
